The Elephant in the podcast is now 40 episodes old/young, I am not fussed💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽

For the 40th episode I had a quick catch up with Kavita Lakhani, about the first edition of the 'I Lead' survey by WICCI PR & Digital Marketing Council & IIM Kozhikode. The survey which had over a 1000 respondents from across India, looks at the barriers women face as they move up the career ladder; progress made so far and also makes recommendations on frameworks for helping women succeed. 

What the 'I Lead' survey does is capture data that can be used as a foundation to design interventions at the industry level or organisational level to help women progress 

Kavita and I spoke about the good, the bad and the ugly from the 'I Lead' survey 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾

👉🏾 The dismal representation of women at leadership/C-Suite level

👉🏾 Equal Pay

👉🏾 What women want? 

👉🏾 The need for a defined career path and mentoring 

👉🏾 The challenges at the policy level, skill set level and mindset that are holding women back

👉🏾 Recommendations on upskilling, mentoring and network 

If you want to know more, listen here 

Memorable passages from the episode

👉🏾 Thank you Sudha for having me back. The last conversation was a fun one, and I'm hoping that this one will be. We have a lot more to discuss today.

👉🏾  One of the things that I wanted to say before I get into this survey, that no chamber of commerce & industry in India today has the representation of the communications industry.

And when I started this role at WICCI. That was the first ask if I was going to come on board in the Women's Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (WICCI), I'm going to start a communications council and that's where the journey started last year. And one of the other things that I also understood was that there was no documented study of Women in leadership roles or Women in communications and their journeys that was carried out by academic think tank or institution. And that's where I reached out to the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode. They've been at the forefront of gender diversity initiatives and I felt that they would be a wonderful partner because they have been championing gender diversity for several years now.

However, they had not focused so far on the communications industry and that's what we asked them to focus on. The respondents for this particular survey, were not limited to either public relations or corporate communications. It went far deeper, because there is no such study that actually covers all the communications disciplines including advertising, journalism, corporate affairs, content, media. And we wanted this to be a comprehensive survey, this is almost like a benchmark for the industry as well. 

👉🏾I think a lot of work has gone in, in the last couple of years, and companies have kind of really moved towards ensuring better gender diversity. For example a good number of participants, nearly two-thirds of the respondents of this survey, they said that male and female employees are evaluated on equal parameters. And that I think is a big, big win. The other thing that they mentioned is that 67%, which is once again, nearly two-thirds of the respondents believe that their organisations value and nurture ambitious women. And typically ambition and women are not words which go well together. So I think this was a very interesting point that came through in the survey. 

👉🏾 Also, another very heartening fact was that more than half of the respondents stated that women are being provided upskilling opportunities. And I think this is more relevant now because with COVID and with all the things that are happening around us, with the technology changes that are happening in the external environment, upskilling is an absolute must-have. It's not an optional thing any longer, so I'm glad that the respondents felt that women are being provided upskilling opportunities which which we have said clearly, there is an intent to have more women in the workforce. 

👉🏾Also, there has been a lot of movement towards ensuring that organisations are perceived as safe places to work. So nearly 75% women agreed that their organisations are really working towards encouraging them to speak up against workplace discrimination or harassment and towards ensuring that there's a safe and inclusive culture. And I think these are very, very positive statistics for India. It clearly indicates that companies are taking DE & I very, very seriously. So I personally felt that these are good, good statistics. 

👉🏾 So, you know when we started out the survey, one of the things that we said is that, in the communications industry, you see a lot more women than you would see in any other profession.

👉🏾 So you see nearly 64% of our workforce at least at the entry level, it's 50% women that enter, but as you go forward, as you go higher up the ladder in the communication industry, It kind of falls to 34%, which is not too bad, because if you look at the national average you see that at a dismal 14%. So 34% in the communications industry is actually good. It's not a bad ratio. Though it could be better, it could be a 50/50, but 34 is not bad. But I think the real problem lies as you go higher up towards leadership levels. So you have a mere 3% at the top leadership levels, and that's where the problem is. 

👉🏾 So essentially, the downside, that the survey really kind of spotlighted for us was that while 66% of the respondents, agreed to the existence of gender diversity. So there is, there's a gender diverse culture. But 61% felt that equal number of men and women are not in leadership roles. And this is not a very good statistic right now, this is something that we have to move up and tackle. It's in fact, ensuring that more women don't drop off their careers at mid-management level. So that's a challenge that we have to resolve. 

👉🏾 The other thing that the survey brought out was that less than half the women around 42% believe that equal pay for equal work is not practised. And that I think was a scary statistic, I would say, while opportunities and all are there, but they're not getting paid. Women are not getting paid and this seems to be kind of reflecting what's happening worldwide. So we were not surprised when we were hearing this, we were hoping it would be better. But worldwide, you hear about this all the time and what we were surprised to hear was that it's happening in the communications industry as well. So this came as a bit of a surprise for us. 

👉🏾 Also a good 53% respondents felt that organisations don't have a clear career growth path for women, once they kind of take a break or they go on a sabbatical or they take a maternity. There is no policy or there is no clarity in terms of where are they going to go? How are they going to be upskilled? How are they going to be, taken towards leadership and that is another area that organisations need to work on. One more absolutely overwhelming statistic was that 79% women feel that their organisation considers home investments, so, you know, if you've taken a break for senior care or childcare, that's considered as a gap when you are being assessed for promotion. Or you're going to be possibly assigned a critical job or a hot job, like they say, so you might not be considered at all for it. And like 79% women feeling like that or believing that that's the case in their workplace, that is something which really kind of was shocking for us actually. 

👉🏾 I think there are some very simple things that we felt, clearly the gaps are there existing, the gaps that have been identified are at three levels. One is at the policy level, the second one at the skillset level and the third one is at the mindset level. And what we did was we actually put together a framework. And we said that when it comes to organisational policies, I think it's very important that organisations now walk the talk. So DE & I should not be a point that is kind of thought through by the HR teams. It has to be a culture through the organisation. It cannot be a day for celebration on International Women's day. So it's something that has to be really carried down through the DNA of our organisation, and in the sense that whatever policies that are being created, they have to really be designed to support women and they need to be the foundation of the workplace, which is committing itself to diversity.

👉🏾 So for example, we talked about women coming back after the maternity break or a sabbatical. What is the policy to ensure that they are kind of upskilled or given a career growth path, which will take them towards leadership, which will retain them within the organisation. So is there any thinking around it?

👉🏾 So that's very, very important. I don't think there are enough companies doing that at all right now, that's an area that they need to focus on. Another area, which is really to take care of the gap, relate to skillsets. Once again, women who are returning after maternity or a career break, they need to be upskilled. There are also some challenges in terms of technology, understanding of technology or barriers adapting to technology. I think these are areas where really organisations can play a huge role in terms of upskilling or training women. 

Also, mentoring is a very, very important part of everything that organisations can do. I don't know of too many organisations in the communications industry that have a formal mentoring program. In fact, there are a handful and that's one area which is easy to plug because if you have a role model who is a woman or a man, you basically have a mentor who is looking out for you and guiding or helping you navigate towards your leadership journey. So that's an area that organisations can focus on. And the third one is really, about support systems, ensuring that you have networking groups, and areas where you can talk without being judged essentially. And this is to ensure that, you're getting conversations around any pain points for an aspiring woman leader to help her navigate her career better. So I think these are very simple areas, simple interventions, but I would say they're very meaningful and they'll go a long way.

👉🏾 I just feel that number one COVID has had a disproportionate impact on women, women in general, whether they in communications or in any profession. And unpaid care work continues to be a women's responsibility with women spending on an average five hours per day on domestic work, versus 30 minutes on an average spent by men. And these are not my statistics, this is not my experience. This has come from the Centre for monitoring Indian economy, which is fairly reputed and I think we can trust the data there. But I think what makes me feel really good is the fact that I see a lot of change, during COVID.

👉🏾 And I think once again I see it in mindsets big time. So women are very, very vocal now about their aspirations to be in leadership positions and I've seen that sea change happening. In spite of all the kind of extra work, domestic work, that's been kind of loaded in their lives during COVID still I think their aspirations haven't died. And I think that's where the opportunity lies. 

👉🏾 Also I think they've been able to get a lot more inspiration from the conversations that are happening across the industry, across organisations. So what I'm sensing is that, they're actively looking out for now opportunities to navigate their careers better. They're looking for mentoring opportunities, they're looking for upskilling opportunities, and for networking forums. And earlier on before COVID, I think it was a bit of a hurdle because you needed to physically be at work, and then you had home responsibilities.

👉🏾 Now I think you can do a bit of networking online. You can do a lot of upskilling online and mentoring too. In a sense, some women have really turned COVID into an opportunity for themselves and I think that is a big, interesting change that I've seen in the last year. 

👉🏾 On a different level, I think also a lot of organisations I've seen are recognising the benefits of having equal representation of genders and they are working towards it. So, in a sense they are trying their level best to provide opportunities to women, to up skill and all of that. So there's a push from the women and the push from the organisations and I think that is really making that difference happen. 

👉🏾 Also a lot of conversation within the industry circles, a lot of appreciation and applauding and recognition of organisations that are really working on a DE & I initiatives. There's a lot of discussion around best practices. And I think all in all, I can only see this becoming better. I think we are all better for it and I can only see that we are going to kind of keep bettering our statistics. I'm hoping by the time we do the second edition, we don't have any downsides I'm really being optimistic there, but yeah, this is what I'd like to see, I think there will be change and we are already on the path. 

👉🏾 Yeah, sure. I just like to say that, when we started out this year there were three key initiatives that we wanted to focus on.

👉🏾 The first one was the I Lead survey, the second one was all about upskilling programs and we've started on that as well, to really focus on personal branding and how can you make a difference in the industry by training yourself and, really working on your own self, you know, upskilling your self. And the third one was that how can you really get a mentor to help you navigate your career? Should you be having that mentor? Do you need any guidance there? And there was a very strong, I would say response, even in our survey in the I Lead survey, saying that women at the mid-management the aspiring women leaders, are essentially losing out because they don't really have either the motivation, the role models or the right kind of guidance. And we felt that through the mentoring program, we'd be able to really address that gap that exists today. And, that's where the idea of actually starting a program for women in the communications industry. 

👉🏾 And it's my pleasure Sudha to partner with your company as well as Mentoring Matters, which is an India based company, to really bring this program for our mentees in India, the women leaders who are really looking to go to the next level. It's going to be a program which will really focus on women who are at the age group with work experience of eight to fifteen years. And focus on very specific areas, building their soft skills as well as functional skills. We are hoping to start out around mid-September. In fact, we are going to be calling for mentees to self nominate and they will be going through a stringent selection process before they make it to the final 15 or 20 who will be selected for the program. So we are hoping to make some really meaningful change for the industry through this program. 

👉🏾 Thank you so much Sudha it's always a pleasure being with you.

Follow Kavita Lakhani on: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kavita-lakhani-8660611/

Twitter: @kavitalakhani

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wicci-public-relations-digital-marketing-council/

Twitter: @WICCIPRDigital

Other important links

👉🏾 https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/wicci-iim-kozhikode-launch-i-lead-survey-for-women-professionals/article33973616.ece

👉🏾 https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/kozhikode/survey-finds-roadblocks-to-women-in-communications-industry/article35573983.ece

👉🏾 https://www.campaignindia.in/article/biases-prevent-women-from-leading-professionally-wicci-survey/471415

👉🏾 https://www.mediawire.in/blog/trending-content/what-women-want-equal-pay-formal-succession-plan-and-mentoring-for-leadership-roles-83260948.html

👉🏾 https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/42-women-in-communications-say-equal-pay-for-equal-work-not-practiced/articleshow/84796865.cms?fbclid=IwAR0Wu_-F0nYMJ4Qqo1NmvW54v37wbxB3BBA971G_o-TyotBlZoCYFIMRKkI